Cabernet Sauvignon, Renacido Vineyard, Garage Wine Company 2020
Parker Robert Parker 96 (2021); Tim Atkin MW Tim Atkin 90; Vinous 96 (2021); Alistair Cooper MW 95; James Suckling 94 (2021); Descorchados 94; JancisRobinson.com 91
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Why this wine
The Renacido parcel is three hectares of 150-year-old bush vines on granite, revived one plant at a time rather than replanted, and that history shows as concentration at only 13.5% alcohol. Wild ferments, a portion of whole bunches trodden by foot and third-use barrels leave the site in the glass rather than the winemaking. Chile has very little Cabernet this old, and almost none farmed this way.
At a glance
- Grape
- Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec
- Region
- Valle de Maule, Chile
- Alcohol
- 13.50%
- Body
- Medium
- Acidity
- High
- Tannins
- Medium
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Medium (5-10 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Red Meat, Barbecue, Cheese
How it tastes
Blackcurrant and dark plum carry a forest-floor, savoury edge, with dried herb and a fine graphite note behind them. Medium-bodied but densely flavoured, holding firm acidity, tannins that feel fine and almost granitic, and a long mineral close. Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec.
The producer
Toronto-born Derek Mossman Knapp went to Chile to ski and stayed for the wine, co-founding The Garage Wine Company in 2001 with his wife Pilar and the oenologist Dr Álvaro Peña. Working the Coastal Range of the Maule, they built a revival programme around old, neglected parcels nurtured vine by vine with small vigneron partners using regenerative farming, and the wines are made in small lots with wild yeasts, manual punch-downs and a small basket press. This bottling comes from a three-hectare vineyard more than 150 years old south of Cauquenes, roughly 13 miles from the Pacific, where dry-farmed bush vines grafted onto País rootstock sit on quartz-bearing silty, sandy granitic soils and crop barely a kilo of small berries per plant; the vineyard is worked by hand and horse, and pruning follows the locality's traditional moon cycles rather than a standard biodynamic calendar. The 2020 fermented naturally in open-top fermenters, a fifth of it as whole bunches trodden by foot, and aged in third-use barrels and some foudres over two winters.
Food and drinking
Serve at 16-18°C. It suits roast lamb, a rare côte de boeuf, slow-braised short rib, or a hard sheep's cheese. Drinking now but built to keep ten to twenty years; an hour in a decanter helps while it is still young. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.